


Everyday Gifts

by stoneage_woman



Series: Everyday Superhero Verse [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adult Peter Parker, Aftermath, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Coming of Age, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Growing Up, Gun Violence, Identity Reveal, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark Coparenting Peter Parker, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, School Shootings, Spider-Man Identity Reveal, Teacher-Student Relationship, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:48:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24228355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoneage_woman/pseuds/stoneage_woman
Summary: After his identity is publicly revealed stopping a school shooting at Midtown Tech, Peter finds himself grappling with the burdens his choices have placed on those who love him. Looking back on his teenage years with freshly opened eyes, Peter is forced to reckon with the consequences of being Spider-Man: what it means to him personally, the shadows of worry it's cast on his aunt and mentor, and everything it cost his former teacher, Mr. Harrington.A companion piece and epilogue to Everyday Superhero.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Roger Harrington & Peter Parker
Series: Everyday Superhero Verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728850
Comments: 130
Kudos: 703
Collections: Spider-Man Public Identity Reveal





	1. Revelations

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: I thought I was going to take a loooong break after Everyday Superhero before I tried to write this fic, if I even got around to writing it at all...but apparently my muse is on fire lately because my method of coping with the lockdown is to write obsessively and avoid the news? So yeah. This is the companion piece/epilogue which covers the shooting and the aftermath of the public identity reveal from Peter's perspective. It will be in three (or four?) parts. I will try to update every couple of days. 
> 
> Also, thank you to my beta-reader, Warriora!
> 
> Trigger Warning: This chapter contains a description of a school shooting. It will probably come up a few times after that as well, but the gun violence theme isn't the main focus of this, not the way it was in Harrington's story. This fic is more about Peter and his journey as he comes to terms with being Spider-Man and how it has affected the people in his life.

For years after it happened, Peter woke up shaking from nightmares that he'd been patrolling in Queens, or trying to stop a mugging in the Bronx, or in class at Columbia University, instead of on his way to Stark Tower for his internship when the alarm went off. One second, he was leaping and gliding through the frigid air, enjoying a rare, snow-free February morning while comfortably heated by his suit's internal protocols. The next, he was speeding towards Midtown, his heart in his throat.

It was Mr. Harrington who had hit the panic button first, Karen informed him in her cool voice. It could have been any other teacher in that building, and he would still have rushed there just as quickly, but the gut-wrenching fear that came with knowing that it was his favorite teacher caught up in this stopped the breath in his lungs.

Peter wanted desperately to believe it was a false alarm, that some kid had hit the panic button on accident, or that Mr. Harrington had simply forgotten to warn them about a drill, even if that had never happened. But Peter's senses were screaming loudly at him, a sickening sense of danger tingling down his spine. He knew with bone-deep certainty that this was the real deal.

As he rounded a street corner and swung over the school gates, he heard the first unmistakable sounds of gunfire coming from the B wing buildings. He leaped towards the football fields, the familiar spaces which he'd once inhabited now seeming hostile and threatening. His entire world seemed to narrow as he caught sight of his former teacher through a shattered classroom window. Panic froze the breath in his lungs.

Mr. Harrington wasn't crouched on the floor or hiding under a desk. Instead, he was desperately grappling with a thin, pale-skinned boy for control of a semiautomatic rifle.

_He was still forty feet away._

He saw the kid push Mr. Harrington, saw him stumble and fall to the floor, holding his side.

_Thirty feet away._

He heard Mr. Harrington plead with the kid, his voice shaking as he told him it wasn't too late to stop.

_Twenty feet._

He heard the bullets click in the chamber of the gun as the shooter reloaded.

_Ten feet._

He saw the boy point the gun at his teacher; saw anguished resignation filling Mr. Harrington's eyes before he closed them, preparing to die.

 _And no_ , Peter thought furiously. _Fuck no._ This wasn't happening.

Glass shattered as he leaped feet first through the classroom window, jumping into the shooter's path seconds before his finger squeezed the trigger. He shot out a web, jerking the gun off course, but not fast enough. There was a streak of fire on his face as the bullet grazed him. Peter cried out, ripping off his mask as it burned against his skin. He could feel blood dripping from the wound freely.

He flicked his wrists again and easily disarmed the kid before he could shoot again, the rifle flying out of his hands in a sweeping arc. He webbed it high on the opposite wall before it could hit the ground, then pushed the boy _back_ , _away_ from Mr. Harrington, throwing him to the floor hard enough to make him lose consciousness immediately. Peter bound the kid to the floor, using so many strands of web fluid that it would probably take several heavy-duty industrial shears to cut him free again.

In the sudden hush that followed, Peter registered the Code Red announcement on the school speakers, the same disembodied voice he remembered from countless drills in his own childhood. The shock of recognition made him flinch, but he ignored it, dropping to his knees beside Mr. Harrington. The man blinked his eyes open, and the expression in them was terror-stricken and completely dazed. For a second, he just stared at Peter uncomprehendingly, as if he couldn't quite believe he was actually there.

Peter opened his mouth to say something reassuring, but Mr. Harrington beat him to it, choking out a question about his injured cheek, and Peter felt his chest tighten at this show of concern for _him_ , now, when it should have been the last thing on Mr. Harrington’s mind. Then he was sitting up on his haunches, looking wildly around the room as he tried to locate his students. Unbidden, a memory rose from seven years ago: his teacher, bursting around a corner in the middle of an attack in Stark Industries' Science and Technology Museum, looking for Peter with the same desperate, terrified look in his eyes. Disturbed by the comparison his mind had just drawn, Peter reached out to calm Mr. Harrington, to reassure him that his students were _fine_ , that he had saved them…

...and watched in horror as he dissolved without warning into heaving, gasping sobs, collapsing back onto the floor as if his world had just ended. The sense of _wrongness_ of seeing this man, who had been an unshakable rock for Peter all through high school, break down so completely was unbearable. Peter heard himself babbling nonsensical words, trying to offer vain comfort, but Mr. Harrington was beyond listening, curled over himself with his face in his hands.

Then, Peter heard the sound of Ironman's propulsion systems in the distance. He arrived minutes later, flying in through the same window Peter had just destroyed on his way in. His helmeted head swiveled around as he took stock of the room and then his gaze landed on Mr. Harrington and Peter. He stepped out of his suit immediately, eyes horrified as they flew to Peter's face, lingering on his bloodied cheek. He looked towards the five kids who Peter hadn't even noticed until this very moment, who were all standing there, recording every moment of this on their phones.

It slammed into Peter, then, what had just happened. He'd been unmasked, right here in Mr. Harrington's classroom, his bare face caught on camera. He felt a crushing dizziness envelop him, alarm and panic rising as he suddenly grasped how completely everything had just changed. For one frozen moment, he and Tony both stared at each other, caught together in the same awful realization. Then Tony shook it off and shot Peter a steadying look before he strode forward and crouched in front of Mr. Harrington, murmuring reassuringly.

The next hour unfolded like a strange, terrible dream. First, the NYPD arrived, and Tony pulled the gaping cops aside immediately, his voice low and authoritative as he tried to explain Spider-Man's presence. A few seconds later, Principal Morita came rushing in. He started forward when he spotted Mr. Harrington, his expression stricken, but then his eyes landed on Peter's face. He stilled in the doorway, staring at him as if he'd seen a ghost. Peter's face heated, and he felt suddenly like a fifteen-year-old about to be called to the principal's office and told off for sneaking away on a field trip. To his credit, Principal Morita shook his surprise off quickly, focusing instead on calming the students.

Through it all, Peter stayed at Mr. Harrington's side, trying to block the shooter from his sight, not that Mr. Harrington was looking at anyone right then. He seemed completely oblivious to everything around him, the sounds of his harsh sobs filtering through the room, his shoulders shaking. Peter could see he wasn't the only one disturbed to see him this way. The seniors looked just as shocked as he felt, and God, he thought suddenly, taking in their pale, tear-stained faces, they all looked so fucking _young_. Had he really been that young himself, only three and a half years ago?

When the room was finally clear of all the students including, thankfully, the shooter, Principal Morita motioned towards Peter and Tony, his lips pressed tightly together in a thin, displeased line. Reluctantly, Peter moved away from Mr. Harrington, who was by now sitting hunched in a chair instead of on the floor, his eyes vacant and bloodshot but finally dry.

"I think it's time for you to leave," the principal told them bluntly once they'd moved to the far end of the classroom. "Not that I'm not grateful to you for stopping this, but the police will want to question Roger soon, and I need to go and deal with the parents outside. You being here in the middle of all this will only complicate things."

"But..." Peter's gaze drifted back to his former teacher, his heart clenching again at how devastated he looked. He couldn't bear the thought of leaving him here like this.

"He'll be fine," said Principal Morita, surprising Peter with his sudden sharpness. "He's a strong man, and even if he wasn't, he's always been good at faking it. A lot better than I realized, apparently, though that's probably down to _you_."

"Hey," Tony protested, even as Peter blanched at the accusation. "That's not fair. This isn't Peter's fault."

Principal Morita opened his mouth as if to argue, but then stopped himself from whatever he was about to say with a visible effort, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. "I'm sorry," he said, looking defeated and worn in a way Peter had never seen him. "It's just been a hell of a day...and it's not even close to over yet."

Tony nodded, his face softening into understanding. The three of them were silent for a beat, and then the principal turned to look at Peter. "You were really doing _this,_ all through high school?" he said, gesturing towards his suit.

"Yeah," said Peter, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth.

"And Roger, he knew all along?"

The hurt and confusion in Principal Morita's voice sent a pang through Peter's heart. He was suddenly reminded of something he'd always known but had never really paid much attention to back in high school: Mr. Harrington and Principal Morita weren't just coworkers; they were also close friends. He'd seen them talking and laughing together in the hallways all the time when he was a student, and the principal had often been in Mr. Harrington's classroom in the mornings before school began. Peter wondered with a sense of consternation what this revelation might do to their relationship. "He did it to protect me," he said.

Principal Morita shook his head and looked again to where Mr. Harrington sat slumped over with his elbows on his knees, staring unseeingly at his hands. "I can think of so many better ways," he said, speaking more to himself than to them. Then, he shook himself and refocused. "You both really do need to get out of here. With the police, the parents, and that video of you that's probably going to go viral any minute now..."

Peter hesitated again, looking towards Mr. Harrington even as Tony nodded swiftly in agreement. "Of course," he said. "Come on, kid. You can check in with Mr. Harrington later."

"Yeah," Peter said reluctantly. He looked towards Mr. Harrington again, his stomach churning with a fresh surge of worry. He walked over to him quickly and bent so they were face to face. "We're heading out. I'll call you later, okay? Everything's... everything's going to be fine, Mr. Harrington."

Mr. Harrington looked at him with a dull, leaden expression in his eyes, then nodded once. Exchanging a troubled look with Tony, Peter grabbed his mask off the floor and put it on, wincing a bit as the burnt edges hit the gash on his cheek. Tony stepped back into his suit, and then they were taking off through the same shattered windows they'd entered, leaping into the cold New York sky.

As he swung towards the school entrance, Peter caught sight of crowds of anxious parents, teachers, and kids milling around near the school gates and soccer fields. It was a tableau of heartbreak and chaos, and it was awful to see his old school suddenly caught up in this particular nightmare. It was the kids' faces that really made his breath catch, though. They all looked so achingly young, ripped jeans and brightly colored sweatshirts and cell phones with shiny, sparkling cases clutched tightly in their hands. Some of the freshmen seemed especially tiny; a few could even have been in middle school. It was hard for Peter to believe he'd been that age when he first became Spider-Man.

As they flew through the city, Peter heard Tony jumping straight into damage control, talking rapidly through their internal communication link as he instructed Steve and the rest of the team to meet them at Stark Tower. He switched channels, told Happy to pick May up from the hospital immediately, and then he was back to business, demanding to speak with Nick Fury at SHIELD.

And _oh God_ , Peter thought with sudden dismay, _May_. What the hell was she going to say when she found out he'd just blown his secret identity? And all of his classmates and friends, and his teachers at Columbia and...and people like Mr. Delmar, too, just random acquaintances- how would they all react when the video went viral? It would happen within a couple of hours, and he realized with a jolt that he had to warn Ned and MJ before they found out about this on the news. He told Karen to text them both, deeply glad now that he'd made the decision to tell MJ his secret two years ago. Peter couldn't imagine her finding out like _this._

They arrived at Stark Tower, entering through a well-hidden private elevator and riding up to Tony's penthouse. As soon as the doors shut behind him, Tony stepped out of his Iron Man armor and immediately pulled Peter into a tight, rough hug. Peter was startled- Tony was always slinging an arm across his shoulders or clapping him on the back, but actual hugs were pretty rare. He returned the embrace with equal fierceness, though, grateful to have an anchor after everything that had just happened.

When they pulled back, Tony left one hand on his shoulder while the other one probed his bleeding cheek through the damaged mask. There was a slight tremor in his mentor's fingers, betraying how rattled he was.

"I'm alright," said Peter. He took his mask off, letting Tony inspect the injury more closely. "I promise. It was just a graze."

Tony nodded, dropping his hand and releasing a shaky sigh as he stepped away. "That was too close," he said. "I can't believe a _kid_ that age would just..."

Peter's mind couldn't help wandering back to Code Red drills and ALICE training sessions, to practicing how to throw books and test tubes at imagined intruders, to the morning when they'd all sat in Art class, painting signs for the 'March for Our Lives' walkout. "I can," he said quietly.

Tony flinched visibly at the words. "I guess Harrington made the right call back then, insisting on all that extra security for the school."

"What are you talking about?"

"The NDA," Tony answered. "As one of his conditions for signing it, he asked me to pay for ALICE training."

"Wait, that was _his_ idea?" Peter asked in shock, "but _all_ the schools in the district were doing it. I thought that was just..."

He was cut off by the elevator doors opening again. Steve, Scott, Bruce, and Sam stepped out into Tony's living room. They were the only Avengers currently in New York City. Peter blinked- even for superheroes, that had been impressively fast. Steve strode forward and grasped Peter by the shoulders. "You okay, kid?" he said, searching his face.

"I'm fine," said Peter, then added with a weak grin, "Well, aside from the fact that I was just publicly unmasked and then filmed by a bunch of high school seniors, that is."

"You what?!" Steve's voice rose in alarm.

"What the hell happened?" Sam asked, his eyes wide.

"School shooting," said Tony, and Peter watched Scott, whose daughter Cassie was in high school herself, go suddenly pale and still. Tony continued wryly, "Peter decided it was a good idea to jump directly into the path of a semi-automatic and take a bullet to the _face_."

"Hey, I told you it was just a graze," Peter protested mildly. "What was I supposed to do, just _let_ the kid shoot Mr. Harrington?"

"Your old science teacher," Steve remembered, looking dismayed. "Is he okay?"

"He's fine," said Tony, then exchanged a dark look with Peter and amended, "Well, physically, at least."

"The shooter was one of his students," Peter explained at their questioning looks. "He was pretty upset."

Steve looked pained. "I can imagine this must have hit him hard," he said. "He always struck me as someone who cared a lot about his students."

"Wait, when did you ever meet him?" Peter asked, surprised.

"I didn't, not in person," Steve clarified, "but we did speak on the phone a few times. It was during those weeks after Thanos when Tony was in a coma. I could tell he was very worried about you- well, so was I, if I'm being honest. It's not every day you find out the superhero who stood at your side for four weeks fighting an all-powerful alien army is actually a sixteen-year-old kid."

Peter winced. He still remembered those dark weeks all too clearly. He'd known Mr. Harrington had been concerned about him, he'd even known that he'd spoken to May a couple of times on the phone, but Peter had never dreamed that he might also be communicating with Steve behind the scenes.

Tony was also staring at Steve with surprise. "I didn't know you ever spoke to him," he said.

Steve shrugged matter-of-factly. "Well, someone had to keep an eye on the kid, especially with you in a coma."

Tony shot Steve a grateful look. Peter looked between them, feeling strangely unsettled. The way Steve had just called him _kid,_ the way they both looked so fiercely protective of his teenage self- it reminded Peter strongly of another moment years ago, when Mr. Harrington had asked him to step outside of his own apartment so that he could talk to May and Tony in private. He'd been wearing that same expression on his face, too.

"Well, what are we going to do now?" Bruce asked. "If his identity's out in the open, he's not going to be safe out there. Not anymore."

"Maybe if he joined the Avengers?" Scott suggested.

" _No,"_ Peter and Tony said at the same time.

"Sorry," Peter continued, grimacing apologetically at Steve. "It's not that I don't love working with you guys. I just don't want to be answerable to SHIELD or go global the way the Avengers are. I'll always help when you need me, of course, but the rest of the time, I think I belong on the streets of New York."

"That's going to be hard to pull off," Sam pointed out. "I mean, not that I disagree with you, but with your face out there now? Everyone's gonna want a piece of you."

"That's true," said Steve. "They'll at least want you to sign the Accords."

"He is _not_ doing that," Tony snapped fiercely.

"The amended version we signed in 2019 wasn't as bad as...well, you know, the first one." Steve dropped his eyes, looking uncomfortable with the painful history this was dredging up.

"He's not _like_ the rest of us, Steve, you know that," Tony said. "If he signs the Accords, it would be the same thing as joining us. _Global_ , not local. Not the way he wants."

"So...what am I going to do, then?" Peter couldn't keep the note of fear and panic from his voice. It had hit him again, how much everything had changed.

Tony looked toward him reassuringly. "I told you, kid, I do have contingency plans in place," he reminded him. "New York loves you, and both the governor and the NYPD know you're the reason the crime rate has been so low the past several years. There's a lot of powerful people who want you to keep doing what you do. I was already working with a few lawmakers to try to get you official permission, and this will just accelerate the process."

Looking into his mentor's steady, determined eyes, Peter let himself believe for a moment that Tony really could fix this, that his life wasn't going to be completely wrecked because of this mess.

"Alright then," said Steve briskly. "It sounds to me like Tony already has things in hand. But we should all stay here the next few days, in case we're needed at short notice. If that's okay?"

"Of course," Tony answered. The Avengers all lived scattered across the city in separate apartments of their own, but they each had their own rooms in Stark Tower, always ready for use.

"Thanks," said Steve. "I'm going to contact the others to see how fast they can get back here. Peter will probably have to do a press conference soon, and I'd like the Avengers to be there to present a united front whenever that happens." He looked at Peter, his eyes lingering on his cheek. "That'll come later, of course. Right now, you should probably get yourself cleaned up."

"Oh, yeah." Peter made a face as he registered the blood drying on his injured cheek.

As the Avengers dispersed in their different directions, Peter escaped to his own room at Stark Tower, sagging in relief when he entered the welcoming familiarity of the space. He didn't rush immediately to the bathroom to clean up, instead sitting down on the edge of his bed. He breathed out shakily, trying to process the events of the tumultuous morning.

…

An hour later, he wandered in the direction of the kitchen, dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt, his hair still damp. Despite the downtime and the hot shower, his sense of fear and panic were back in full force. In the quiet of his room, the images of his old classroom all shot up and damaged by bullets had felt haunting and inescapable. The sight of Mr. Harrington's terror-stricken, wet eyes kept lancing through him painfully, to the point that he'd actually cracked and tried to call him, unable to stand it anymore. Even though he'd known it was too soon, he'd wanted nothing more than to hear that warm, steady voice. Of course, Mr. Harrington hadn't answered his phone. He was probably still at school, talking to the cops.

Peter couldn't help but feel a deep sense of guilt that he hadn't been to see Mr. Harrington since graduation. He'd wanted to, more times than he could count. In that first year out of high school, when he'd still been adjusting to the transition to Columbia and adulthood, he'd almost given in and gone to see him a few times. But each time he'd come close, he had stopped himself, thinking of all the other students the man was responsible for. A widely known friendship with Peter would pose too great a risk to Mr. Harrington and to the school, he'd told himself, and so he had kept his distance.

Now, though, he wished he hadn't listened to those misgivings. If Mr. Harrington had died today, if Peter had been too late, if the last time he'd seen his teacher alive had been at his high school graduation, he would never have forgiven himself for that.

Turning the corner down the hallway leading into the kitchen, he heard murmured voices. It was May, talking softly with Tony. She'd probably arrived only a few minutes ago. Peter wasn't intending to eavesdrop on them, but when he registered what they were saying, he stopped in his tracks, shock jolting through his body.

"It could have been much worse, I guess. If this had happened when he was in high school, I don't even want to know what that would have been like. At least now that he's an adult, no one can try to take him away from me."

"He would have webbed up anyone who tried," Tony said with a rueful laugh. "But yeah, you're right. I used to worry about that too."

"On my way here, I kept thinking about those three terrible days when we were waiting to find out if Mr. Harrington would sign the NDA," May said. "I was out of my mind- Peter was too. I was so _sure_ I was going to lose him. I thought, this is my fifteen-year-old kid who I'm supposed to be raising and taking care of, and here he is, running into burning buildings and getting into firefights and going up against fully-grown superheroes in Europe, and meanwhile I'm just _letting_ him? I looked at it from Mr. Harrington's point of view, and I couldn't see why he _wouldn't_ report it to CPS."

"When he refused to sign the NDA in my office, I started making plans the same day," said Tony. "My legal team was already drafting opening arguments for a potential custody hearing by the time we sat down with him that weekend."

"Thank God it didn't come to that," said May with feeling. "Though honestly, it's a miracle it didn't, given the kind of crazy conditions you put in that thing. Seriously, if it had been _anyone else_ but Mr. Harrington...we're damn lucky he signed it."

"It wasn't that bad," Tony protested half-heartedly.

"Yeah, Tony, it really was," she said drily.

They trailed into silence. Peter stayed where he was, feeling winded and out of breath. He'd always been aware that Tony and May had worried over him in high school, but the way they were talking about it now, it was clear it had consumed both their lives a lot more than he'd ever realized. Neither of them had ever mentioned CPS to him, not once in all those years. If they had, he acknowledged to himself that he probably wouldn't have taken it seriously, not back then.

Now, though, fresh off seeing all those young, teary-eyed kids being clutched close by their terror-stricken families, Peter felt cold as he realized that it had once been a real possibility. If someone had found out who he was, if Ned had slipped up or if _he_ had slipped up or if Mr. Harrington had chosen to report him, he really could have been taken away from May at fifteen. The mere thought of that made him shudder.

A few more beats passed. Peter knew he couldn't stay here forever, hovering silently in the hallway. He straightened, tried to smile in a way that wouldn't show how perturbed he was, and walked into the kitchen. "Hey, May."

She stood from her seat at the counter and stepped towards him quickly, scanning his face, one hand touching his injured cheek gently. It was already healing, and Peter knew it would probably fade away within a day or two. "I'm so glad you're okay, baby," she said shakily.

"Me too," Peter returned.

They took a seat at the counter while Tony busied himself with pouring them all mugs of coffee, turning away to give them a few moments of privacy. Peter cleared his throat. "So, uh, sorry about the…" He gestured towards his face. "I never wanted to put you at risk, and I know this does."

"It was bound to happen eventually," she said, shrugging it off, and Peter was startled because it was the exact same thing he'd said to Mr. Harrington only hours ago, only he'd said it to assuage the man's concern, not because he'd actually believed it. "It's going to be fine," she continued. "It'll suck for a while for both of us, but you have only a few months left to graduate anyway, and then you'll be working at SI full time. As for me, I know I won't be able to work at the hospital anymore, but Dr. Cho's had a vacancy on her medical team with my name on it for years."

"She has?"

For maybe the third time that day, Peter found himself blinking in surprise at this glimpse into a part of the past he'd never known, this revelation that there'd been conversations and plans made years ago by the people who cared about him, all for the sake of keeping him safe and happy. He wondered suddenly what else he'd missed, what other quiet sacrifices they had made for his sake.

By now, Tony had finished pouring out the coffee. He set mugs down in front of May and Peter and took a seat at the counter and shot them both a mischievous smirk. "I made that offer the day I met your aunt," he said. "There'll always be room on my medical team for hot Italian nurses."

"Ew, can you please not?" said Peter, wrinkling his nose, while May just laughed gently, rolling her eyes at the old joke.

The three of them sipped their coffees in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Then Tony said, "So about your apartment. It obviously won't be safe for you to live there anymore. I'm having movers sent over today to pack your things up and move them here today." He glanced sideways at Peter and added, "I'm sorry, kid. I know you loved Queens."

Peter accepted the loss of his childhood home with a nod, knowing it was inevitable. He would miss Queens, but their safety was more important, and besides, he loved the Tower, too. "What about Mr. Harrington?" he asked, changing the subject.

"I've told FRIDAY to make sure his address and contact information are either locked down or taken offline," said Tony. "The reporters won't be able to find him. And…" He hesitated. "If he needs it, he knows he has a job waiting for him here."

"Wait, what?" Peter straightened in shock. "Why would he need a job? You really think he's going to be fired over this?"

"I hope not," said Tony, grimacing, "but the principal seemed pretty mad, and seven years is a long time to conceal something like this."

"But...he only lied to help _me,"_ Peter said, feeling dismay and guilt curdling in his stomach. "They can't do that, can they? He literally just tackled a school shooter and saved _all_ his students. You can't fire someone who does that."

"He did what?" Tony asked, his jaw going slack in shock, and Peter realized belatedly that his mentor hadn't actually seen what happened.

"He grabbed the gun and forced it upwards, so the bullets would only hit the ceiling," he explained tightly. "I wouldn't have made it in time, if he hadn't done that."

" _God_ ," said May, stunned and pale. "That's completely..."

"Yeah." Peter swallowed hard, his throat suddenly tight. "I keep thinking about the day after Parkland, when we discussed the shooting during class. Just, you know, how we were feeling, and what we would do if it ever happened at Midtown." He released an uneven breath. "I'll never forget the look on his face when Betty asked him if he was willing to die for us. He said yes, of course he would, as if the question wasn't even worth asking _, a_ s if he _knew_ that was how it might play out someday. As if he'd been prepared to die like that for years." It had been a terrible thing to hear, even then, when it was all hypothetical. Now that it had almost happened in reality, it was unthinkably horrifying. "If I'd gotten there even _one second_ later…"

"You didn't, though, Pete," said Tony, reaching out to clasp his shoulder comfortingly. "You made it there in time, and he's still alive. You're going to call him and talk to him soon. He's fine."

Peter nodded. He wrapped his fingers around the comforting warmth of his coffee mug and took a sip of the bittersweet liquid. "I guess I shouldn't be that surprised," May remarked. "He pretty much said he'd do the same for Peter when he signed the NDA. Remember?" She looked towards Tony, who winced.

Peter set his mug down a little too hard, causing a splash of coffee to slosh over the rim and onto the counter. This was the third time Tony or May had mentioned a clause or crazy condition in the NDA, and he'd had enough. Just what the hell had Mr. Harrington even _signed_ that day? "I want to see it," he said.

"What?"

"The NDA," said Peter forcefully. "I want to read it for myself. I have to know what he was willing to…" The image of Mr. Harrington, closing his eyes in resignation on the floor of his classroom, rose once again in his mind. "I have to _know_ ," he repeated.

"Peter." May exchanged a troubled look with Tony, who was sitting very stiffly in his chair, refusing to meet Peter's gaze. "I'm really not sure that's such a good idea. It's only going to upset you more, and right now, in the middle of all this? You don't need to be worrying about that. It was a really long time ago."

"If he's going to get _fired_ over it now, then I don't care how long ago it was," Peter said, leveling them both with a hard look. "It still matters, you know it does. Stop trying to protect me from it."

Again, they exchanged a loaded look, and then Tony sighed and nodded, deflating in his chair. "Fine," he said. "I'll have a couple of my lawyers go over it with you tomorrow."

Peter blinked. "That's okay, I can just read it myself; I'm sure I don't need-"

"Yeah, you do," Tony broke in grimly. "Trust me. You're going to need all the help you can get."

And just what the hell was that supposed to mean? Looking from his aunt, who was staring down at the dregs of her coffee with a pensive expression on her face, to Tony, who had turned away from Peter again, scrolling busily through his phone, Peter felt his sense of trepidation grow. He knew with a feeling of certainty, now, that this was going to be even worse than he was imagining.

He wasn't sure if he was ready to face it.

...

TBC…

Up Next:

_“It was still too much, Tony. He would never have signed this if he’d actually understood what you were asking of him.”_

_"Oh, he understood." Tony looked back at him then, and Peter could clearly read the certainty in his eyes, and the deep-seated respect and admiration he had for Mr. Harrington after seven years of loyalty and upheld promises. "He knew exactly what would have happened if he broke his word, Peter. He did it anyway. He did it for you."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed reading the grown-up Peter's perspective as much as I enjoyed writing it. It felt like a completely different skin to step into after Everyday Superhero. Anyway, I'm curious to hear what you thought of this. It's so good to be posting again! I'm already worried about what I'll do after I finish this fic. :)


	2. Sacrifices

An hour later, the video finally hit the internet. It was uploaded on Instagram and Twitter by one of the seniors, along with the caption, **#ThankYouPeterParker.** Sitting in his room in Stark Tower, Peter watched the clip on his laptop with a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, unable to look away from his own bare, unmasked face contorting with worry as he tried to steady Mr. Harrington.

The whole thing was awful from start to finish, but the absolute worst moment was when Mr. Harrington looked towards the kid webbed to the floor with tears spilling down his cheeks and asked him why he'd done it. The heartbroken way he'd gasped out, _"you were such a good kid"_ cut Peter to the quick. He remembered how often Mr. Harrington had said the same thing about him, back in high school, and the thought made him shudder, bone-deep.

Feeling another surge of desperate concern, Peter grabbed his phone off his bedside table, gripping it a little too tightly. Ignoring the dozen or so messages that had already exploded onto his phone, he dialed Mr. Harrington. Once again, the phone kept ringing and then went straight to voicemail. Feeling like he was about to crawl out of his skin, Peter scrolled through his list of contacts and called Ned instead. His best friend picked up on the first ring.

"Did you see it?"

"Yeah, just now." Ned's voice was tight and a little shaky. "It's... _fuck_ , Peter."

"Yeah, I know."

They were silent for a few moments, unable to think of any words to encapsulate the horror of watching their old classroom ridden with bullets, kids cowering under the same desks they'd once used, and their high school teacher sobbing on the floor.

Finally, Ned asked, "So what are you going to do about Spider-Man? Now that you've been outed, I mean."

"I don't know," said Peter, the words escaping in a helpless rush as he finally gave voice to the panic he'd been feeling since that morning. "It's so much, you know? We're moving into the Tower and can't live in Queens anymore, May has to quit her job because the hospital won't be safe, and I don't even know what the fuck I'm going to do about my classes; I have like, three assignments due and two of them have to be handed in as hard copies. I should probably email all of my professors today and tell them...something."

"Dude, you do _not_ need to worry about your assignments right now," said Ned drily. "Literally everyone on the planet would understand why you'd need an extension."

Peter threw himself back on his bed with a sharp exhalation. "Yeah, I guess that's true."

"How's May doing?" Ned asked. "She's really losing her job at the hospital? That seriously sucks."

"I mean, she's going to work on Dr. Cho's team instead," said Peter, "so it's not like she's completely unemployed or anything...but yeah, it does suck. She's always loved working at the hospital."

May was just like him in so many ways, finding joy in helping ordinary people every way she could. It was not just medical emergencies and life-saving care; it was helping people figure out their insurance plans, answering questions that felt too small to bother doctors with, and helping families grieve or come to terms with devastating news. Peter thought that was why his aunt had always understood why Spider-Man was so important to him, why she'd never tried to stop him from living this life even when he was a kid. He hated that he was repaying the sacrifices she'd made by causing her to lose something which was as important to her as Spider-Man was to him.

"It's not your fault," Ned told him as if reading his mind. "It's not like you got yourself unmasked on purpose. You were stopping a school shooting."

"Yeah." Peter shifted so he was lying on his stomach, putting his phone on speaker and setting it on the bed because he was tired of feeling it vibrating constantly under his cheek. People were definitely losing their shit about the whole Spider-Man situation, he thought wryly. "Tony said he thinks Mr. Harrington might be fired."

"Really?" Ned's voice rose in dismay. "Why?"

"For keeping Spider-Man a secret when I was in high school," Peter answered grimly. "I just feel really terrible, you know? After everything he did for me, if _this_ is how it ends for him…"

"Yeah, that would suck big time," Ned agreed. "He really cared about us a lot. Even me- we were never close the way you guys were, but he still took the time to check in when he saw how worried I was about you during the Thanos situation."

"He did?"

"Yeah," Ned answered. "He sat me down and told me he understood how awful it was and said I could always come by if I ever wanted to talk. I never did, but I still appreciated that he offered. God, he really adored you, though. He used to freak out every time you missed school or got caught up in something dangerous; he probably still does. He hid it pretty well, but I could always tell. Mostly because I was freaking out too, so I could recognize it in him." He laughed a little, sounding rueful.

Peter remembered his first day back from Christmas break in his sophomore year. He'd walked into Mr. Harrington's classroom that morning and watched, stunned, as his teacher had half-collapsed against a whiteboard as soon as he'd laid eyes on him, dizzy with relief because he'd apparently spent a week worrying that Peter hadn't survived a fight with an alien spaceship. "I really caused everyone a lot of anxiety, huh," he said.

"You're only realizing this now?" Ned sounded amused. "It's whatever, dude. It's not like you could help it. What were you going to do, _stop_ being Spider-Man?"

They both knew that had never been an option, and that it never would be. After all the good he'd done as Spider-Man, Peter could never have wanted to be anything else. That didn't make him feel less guilty, though, not after he'd just rewatched Mr. Harrington falling apart on camera. Because Peter knew why Spider-Man was worth it to him, but what about everyone else?

"Yeah, I guess you're right," was all he could think of to say.

Ned changed the subject, asking, "Have you heard from MJ yet?"

"Uh, no," said Peter. "Oh, wait, actually-" he paused, a bright grin forming on his lips when he read the message flashing across his lockscreen. "She just texted me _. 'Good job saving the day, loser. Next time, maybe try not to get yourself shot in the face.'"_

Ned laughed out loud. "Ice cold," he breathed. "God, I love MJ."

Peter could do nothing but smile and chuckle in agreement. "Yeah, me too," he said.

...

Over the next few hours, the video continued to ratchet up tens of thousands of views as the world reacted to the revelation of Spider-Man's identity. There was an outpouring of emotion and gratitude which caught Peter by surprise. He was moved to see so many New Yorkers tweeting their thanks, sharing stories about how he'd helped them or saved their lives. He spent a long time on Twitter just soaking in all the **#ThankYouPeterParker** posts, reveling in this fresh proof of all the good he'd done.

He was also amused by the reaction of his former Midtown Tech classmates, ranging from amused, to shocked, to annoyed with themselves for not having seen it. He was particularly tickled by Flash's hilarious tweet: _"...So Parker, I guess you did have a pretty good reason for missing Nationals that one time._ _ **#ThankYouPeterParker.**_ _"_ It was completely unexpected and was also probably as close to an apology as he was ever going to get from the guy, so he wrote back, smiling, " _Thanks, Flash. Sorry I wrecked your dad's car."_

Not all of it was funny, though. Liz Toomes sent him a DM on Twitter, a neutral but pointed, _"Well, this sure explains a lot."_ He responded with, _"I'm really sorry,"_ not really knowing what else to say. She didn't reply to his message, and when he looked her up and saw what she was doing now, he was saddened to realize that she was working as a lab technician for a tiny medical diagnostics firm in rural Oregon. It wasn't terrible by any means, but it wasn't even close to what she would have been capable of if she'd finished out her senior year at Midtown. It hurt Peter to realize that her life had never really recovered from what Spider-Man and the Vulture had done to it.

The one thing that truly caught Peter off guard were the horrified reactions when people worked out how young he'd been in those first few years. Peter had always known he'd been a teenage superhero, but he'd always thought that his age was irrelevant, that it was his responsibility to do whatever it took to help people regardless of how old he happened to be. Now, as he watched people reacting with increasing alarm and shock, he began to see it from their perspective.

Betty Brant released a clip from her old _"Under the Mask"_ segment from the Midtown Daily Newscast, and he watched his fifteen-year-old self saying into the camera, "Where is Spider-Man?" One strap of a heavy school backpack covered with geeky Star Wars stickers hung off his shoulder, and he looked sheepish and a little gleeful as he grinned into the camera. And _fuck_ , he thought. He'd been such a _child_. He tried to picture Cassie Lang throwing herself into danger, going up against criminals wearing a costume and mask. His stomach turned over at the idea.

He understood then, with a sudden, visceral clarity, how young and vulnerable he'd been at the start of all this, and how difficult those years must have been for Tony, May, and Mr. Harrington. It was a knowledge that had been building slowly since the moment of the shooting when he'd looked around Mr. Harrington's classroom and been struck by the youthful faces of the kids, but the true weight of it only hit him now, seeing his own teenage, dorky self babbling away on a computer screen.

He didn't quite know what to do with the realization. He could never regret a moment of being Spider-Man- even now, the stories were still pouring in from all over, reminding him of all the lives he'd touched. It was an inextricable part of who was, but that didn't change the fact that these three adults who'd loved him and cared for him and watched out for him in a thousand different ways must have gone through hell watching him throw himself into danger over and over again.

The guilt was especially sharp when he thought about May. Tony had at least always known who he was, right from the start. He'd had ways to protect Peter that May hadn't, he'd been able to give him a suit and stand at his side through most of his battles. For May, though, who had already lost Ben, who had no powers and no technology of her own, who had only been able to watch, helpless to stop him...

How must it have felt for her to have to watch her teenage nephew every night on the news, fighting aliens and supervillains, throwing himself into house fires, taking down muggers and criminals and rapists?

Peter breathed out shakily and continued to scroll through his Twitter feed. As he skimmed past the grateful posts to look for some of the other reactions, he stumbled across a tweet that made him straighten in anger and shock. It was a post about Mr. Harrington, dissecting his history and his life, asking how much he'd known about Peter in high school and why he hadn't done enough to look out for him. The injustice of the accusation made him just sit there for a moment, gaping in outrage at his computer. His anger only grew when he saw the number of retweets it had.

Soon, he came across other posts asking the same questions, asking why May hadn't protected him, and why Tony hadn't, and why his teachers hadn't stopped him from going out there and doing this _._ He closed his laptop a little more forcefully than he should have, incandescent with helpless fury that his favorite teacher's name was splashed across the internet because of _him_ , and that no one was even _talking_ about the fact that Mr. Harrington had tackled someone with a gun and saved dozens of lives. In fact, no one seemed to be talking much about the shooting at all, and that made him furious in an entirely different way.

Peter slept uneasily that night, and the next morning, he ate a quick breakfast and descended ten floors, stepping off the elevator into Stark Industries' legal department. He received a few wide-eyed looks as he walked through the brightly lit office, but he ignored them, heading straight to his meeting with the two lawyers Tony had assigned to help him.

When they sat down together, one of the lawyers handed him an expensive leather folder. When Peter opened it, the first thing he noticed was Mr. Harrington's familiar signature in red ink at the bottom of the first page of the NDA, almost as if this had just been another assignment or test he'd had to grade. It made Peter's heart clench painfully in his chest, and the feeling only grew worse when he thumbed through the sheaf of papers and saw the same red signature on every page: his teacher, promising to protect him.

The next two hours passed in a haze of confusion as the lawyers went over every clause. Peter knew he was a smart guy, but the writing was almost incomprehensible even to him, full of legal jargon and long, convoluted sentences. He now understood why Tony had insisted he would need the lawyers, and wondered how the _hell_ Mr. Harrington had even made sense of any of this? It must have taken him days. As he began to understand the enormity of what Mr. Harrington had taken on, his confusion was replaced swiftly by horror and outrage.

At the end of the meeting, he snatched up the NDA and jammed it into the folder, blatantly ignoring the sputtering protests from one of the lawyers that he couldn't just up and leave with a legal document. His jaw was clenched, and his skin felt prickly and tight as he strode through the office and headed straight back upstairs. Tony was sitting at the living room table on the phone, and Peter heard enough to realize he was talking to some lawmaker to discuss 'the Spider-Man situation.' He was too consumed with anger about what he'd just learned to care about that. He crossed the room in three steps and slammed the folder down on the table in front of his mentor.

"How could you make him sign this?!"

"Excuse me, Gary, I'll call you right back," said Tony, hanging up quickly. He looked down at the folder, and then up at Peter standing over him, and he said calmly, "I did what I had to."

"You didn't have to do _this_ , _"_ Peter protested in an angry hiss. "This wasn't just a promise to keep my identity a secret. _That_ I would have understood, but this put his job and his _life_ at risk. This says if he'd ever told anyone who I was, even by accident,he could never have worked in education and STEM again for _twenty-five years._ What the hell else was he supposed to do, Tony?" He thumbed through the pages quickly, finding another clause and jabbing his finger at the damning lines. "And here, you made him promise to protect me under duress? Even if he was being held hostage or _tortured,_ or...?" He drew in a sharp, shaky breath, unable to finish.

"That was his decision," said Tony, and still his voice was completely even and quiet, a stark contrast to Peter's anger. "I know it's hard to hear that, but it's the truth. It was the first thing he told us when he sat down at your kitchen table all those years ago. That he was completely sure, that he had no second thoughts."

"But how could he have been sure?" Peter demanded. "The language is so complicated, I could barely understand a word of it even with two of your lawyers sitting with me. How was he supposed to have figured this out on his own in three days?"

A flash of shame passed over Tony's face then, and he looked away. "I was trying to keep you safe," he said. "I'm not proud of it, but I didn't know anything about him. He could have destroyed your life with one word if he'd wanted to. You were _fifteen years old_. What was I supposed to do?"

And _oh_ , how it stung to be reminded of that now, when Peter himself had just been hit hard by the realization of how young and vulnerable he'd been. He crossed his arms over his chest, frowning heavily at his mentor. "It was still too much, Tony. He would never have signed this if he'd actually understood what you were asking of him."

"Oh, he understood." Tony looked back at him then, and Peter could clearly see the certainty in his eyes, along with the deep-seated respect and admiration he held for Mr. Harrington, built over seven years of loyalty and upheld promises. "He knew _exactly_ what would have happened if he broke his word. He did it anyway. He did it for you."

Peter flinched hard. _I wasn't worth that. What did I ever do for him, except give him more reasons to worry?_

He sat down across from his mentor, feeling more sad than angry, now. "Even if that's true, it was still really unfair," he said. "Even if he knew. Even if he did it because I was a kid, or because he felt responsible, or because it's just in his nature to care that much. That still doesn't make this right."

"I know." Tony looked pained, but there was no real regret in his expression. Peter knew he truly believed he'd done what he needed to, and that he would do the same thing again if given a choice. The weight of that settled uneasily on him, and he stared out the window, unable to think of anything else to say.

…

For the rest of that day, Peter stayed in his bedroom and watched the world unfurl on the news. He skipped lunch, emailed his professors to ask for an extension, and called MJ to have a long talk about everything that had happened. Despite his attempts to distract himself, most of his day was spent scrolling through Twitter on his phone and laptop, looking for negative comments about the people he loved. There were too many to count. He felt adrift and uncertain, unable to do anything to help anyone, even himself.

Meanwhile, Tony went out to meet with lawyers and congressmen, trying to carve out the terms of the deal that would allow Peter to continue being Spider-Man. Peter was still deeply unhappy about the NDA, but he had also never been more grateful for his mentor. If it hadn't been for Tony's sure-handed, easy confidence and forward planning, Peter had no idea where he would even be right now.

He texted and called Mr. Harrington several times over the course of that day. Each time, the phone kept ringing and ringing before going to voicemail. Peter didn't leave him any messages, unsure of what he would even say. His worry and concern grew worse with every unanswered text and phone call. It was _awful_ to think of Mr. Harrington sitting alone in his apartment, watching strangers on CNN pick apart his life and debate whether he'd done right by Peter.

As the hours blurred by, Peter found himself remembering things from his school days which he hadn't thought about in years. That time he'd panicked about needing accommodations to get his schoolwork done, and how Mr. Harrington had gently but firmly talked him into accepting help. The day he'd argued desperately with Peter, begging him not to go rushing out in the middle of an active shooter drill, his voice cracking with emotion when he'd finally given in and said, "Okay, Peter. You win."

The time Peter had been out of school for weeks, about to go out and fight Thanos's army without Tony at his side for the first time ever, painfully aware that the man he saw as a father was lying unconscious in a hospital bed in Stark Tower. His phone had buzzed with an email from Mr. Harrington telling him, " _you've got this, Peter_ ," and he'd finally felt like he was able to breathe for the first time since he'd seen Tony falling.

Then there was the day he'd broken down in Mr. Harrington's classroom and his teacher had just let him cry without saying a word. A few weeks after that, when Tony was still unconscious in his bed and Peter was spiraling, barely eating or sleeping, he'd fallen into an exhausted doze one afternoon on Mr. Harrington's sofa. He'd jerked awake three hours later, scrambling up in a panic as his eyes fell on the clock, which read 6:30 pm. "Why didn't you wake me?" he'd asked, aghast.

Mr. Harrington had just smiled at him from his desk, obviously exhausted from a long day but pretending for Peter's sake that he wasn't. "It's fine, I had lots of grading to do," he'd lied. "Don't sweat it. I was planning to stay late anyway."

Peter would never forget the rush of gratitude he'd experienced standing there in the middle of that darkened classroom- Mr. Harrington had turned off the lights so Peter could sleep a little longer. In the midst of all his worry and dread about Tony's coma, he'd still never felt more loved and cared for and _safe._ In that moment, he'd known with blinding certainty that Mr. Harrington would always be one of the people he trusted and counted on without question or hesitation.

Now, years older and sitting in his bedroom, Peter was vibrating with too much energy, his phone buzzing and buzzing with messages from all the people he didn't want to hear from while Mr. Harrington refused to call him back. He wondered darkly if the teacher might resent him a little, now that the job he loved and his reputation were both in jeopardy thanks to Spider-Man. Mr. Harrington would never admit it, of course, but maybe it was finally sinking in how much he'd sacrificed for Peter. Maybe that was the reason he was ignoring Peter's calls.

There was a knock on his door, a welcome interruption to the dark spiral his thoughts were leading him down. May poked her head into the room, her forehead wrinkling with concern. "Hey," she said. "I just wanted to check in. You've been up here a while."

"I have?" Peter blinked. He'd lost track of time.

"Yeah, it's been hours." She came in and sat down on the edge of his bed, resting a hand on his arm. "Doing okay?"

Peter let out a sharp breath of air. "Yeah, I just…" He shrugged. "I haven't heard back from Mr. Harrington. I'm really worried."

"Oh," said May, her expression rippling with pained sympathy. "Yeah, that video was really terrible, wasn't it? But Peter, he did just survive a mass shooting attempt. Maybe he just needs some space. I'm sure he'll call you back soon."

"I hope so." Peter scanned her face, assessing. "How about you? Did you talk to your hospital administrators yet?"

"Yeah, this morning." She looked a little sad, but resolute. "They didn't say it, but they were definitely relieved to hear I was quitting. No one wants someone high-risk to be around vulnerable patients, so I don't blame them for wanting me gone. I just wish I'd gotten to say goodbye. This has all happened so suddenly. I didn't even get to clean out my locker."

Peter nodded, feeling guilt rise inside him again. "It sucks that you're now considered _high-risk_ because of me."

She shrugged. "As I said yesterday, it was always going to happen eventually, and I'm starting work with Dr. Cho tomorrow. It's all good."

If anything, that only made Peter feel worse. "No, it's not," he said. "May, I..."

"Yeah?"

"I'm so sorry," he said, the words leaving him in a rush. "For how much I worried you in high school, and for making you live with the fear of CPS all those years, and because now you can't even do your _job_ because of me. I just-"

"Peter," she interrupted, her eyes going wide. "Is that really what you've been thinking, cooped up in here all day? You don't need to apologize for any of that, baby. Mr. Harrington would tell you the same, and Tony would too. None of that was your fault, not ever."

"It was still my _choice_ to go out there and be Spider-Man, though," said Peter, unable to let it go. "And I wouldn't take it back, but I don't know how you stomached any of it. I don't know what I would have done if it had been you out there."

"Hey, come on now," she said firmly, taking one of his hands in hers and lacing their fingers together. "You can't think of it that way. The fact that you go out on patrol every day and save all those people, you think that's worth _nothing_ to us? Don't you know how proud I am, every time you use your gifts to help people?" Her hand felt fragile under the enhanced strength coiled in his fingers, but he still squeezed back gently, feeling a little comforted. "I keep reading all these posts from people thanking you," she continued. "It kills me sometimes that Ben never got to see the person you grew into. He would have been so proud." She smiled a little, her eyes filling. "It makes me think that maybe we didn't completely fuck up the whole parenting thing after all."

"You definitely didn't," he said, disentangling their hands so he could lean in and hug her. His eyes were stinging too. He and May never talked much about Ben, rarely acknowledging their grief. They never had, not even when it first happened, preferring to deal with everything by keeping things light and cheerful between them. Hearing this from her now meant the world, soothing something that had been aching inside him. "I love you, May."

"Love you too." She squeezed his shoulders and then pulled back, swiping at her eyes. "Now, stop moping around like a moody teenager. Steve is already freaking out about you skipping lunch today, and Tony's going to be even worse if he gets back home and realizes you spent the entire day in your room. Come downstairs and sit with the others a while, okay? You need to get something to eat."

"Yeah, okay," he said, knowing she was right. He made himself get up, leaving his phone behind on his bed so he wouldn't be tempted to keep checking it. "Lead the way."

…

TBC...

Up Next:

_There were so many things Peter wanted to say. He thought about how distraught Mr. Harrington had been over his student who was the shooter, and wondered if he could actually be okay after that. He remembered the disappointment in Principal Morita's voice, the NDA with all its awful implications still lying on the desk in his room, and how many years it had been since he'd last seen his teacher's face. "Can I come meet you in person?" he asked abruptly. "Like, today maybe? For lunch?"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is enjoying the angsty fluffiness of this story. I really liked writing the May and Peter scene :)
> 
> Also, I wanted to let you know that MidnightMoonraider has written an amazing oneshot fic based on Everyday Superhero about the aftermath of the shooting from Harrington’s perspective and how he and his senior class deal with everything. It’s called “Everyday We’re Healing.” Please go read it immediately! It’s very raw and real because it’s based on the writer’s own experiences and trauma after surviving a school shooting ten years ago. I was very moved by her reaching out to me and sharing her memories and trauma in her comments on Chapter 8 and 13. She wrote this fic, which I beta-read for her, based on her own experiences of dealing with the aftermath of a shooting.  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/24228355/chapters/58373965


	3. Gifts

Two days later, Peter sat with Tony and Steve at the kitchen table. They were going over talking points for Tony's upcoming meeting with the governor of New York, which was scheduled for the following afternoon. Tony had a document open on his computer, and when Peter took a look at the version history, he was shocked to see it had been created in 2019. Sometimes, he was still completely floored about how long Tony had been planning this.

So far, they had gone over the precise differences between the jurisdictions of the NYPD, SHIELD and the FBI- which felt like a lot of legal minutiae that made no real difference to his life- a requirement by law to always use nonlethal force in his battles- which Peter had absolutely no problem with- and the proposed chain of command to follow in case he ever clashed with the police on a judgment call, which was the part he was having the most trouble wrapping his head around. "It all just seems kind of impractical?" he said, frowning. "I know why they want a chain of command, but I won't have the _time_ to stop and check in with the NYPD every time something happens. I might need to jump in and help immediately, and I'm not going to wait to ask permission in the middle of an emergency."

"He's right," Steve agreed. "Spider-Man is often there before the cops are. It would slow him down and make him less effective if he had to wait around for them."

"Of course you _would_ say that," Tony grumbled. "I swear, it's like the Accords all over again."

Peter winced, looking between them quickly as this old ghost reared his ugly head. To his relief, Tony didn't actually appear to be more than mildly annoyed, and Steve didn't take the bait, instead making a level-headed suggestion about extenuating circumstances which they could use as a possible loophole in the agreement. Peter marveled for a moment, thinking about how that one comment would once have caused days of coldness and tension. Things had definitely thawed and softened between them over the years, and he was glad to see it.

Before he could say anything, though, Peter's phone began to buzz on the table. He glanced down, expecting to see another call from a Midtown Tech alum, but all thought flew out of the window when he saw the name flashing on his screen. "Mr. Harrington?"

Tony and Steve immediately stopped talking, both turning to stare at him.

"Hey, Peter," Mr. Harrington said. "How are you doing?" At the sound of his warm, steady voice, Peter felt something inside him relax for the first time since the shooting. He closed his eyes for a second, releasing a quiet, shaky, breath of relief.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" He rose from his seat at the table and walked towards the living room, searching for privacy. He could feel Tony's eyes intent on his back as he walked away.

"I'm fine," Mr. Harrington answered. "I'm sorry I didn't call you sooner. I was just processing everything, but I'm okay now. Really. And, uh, thank you for coming to save us."

"You don't have to thank me for that." There were so many things Peter wanted to say. He thought about how distraught Mr. Harrington had been over his student who was the shooter, and wondered if he could really be okay after that. He remembered the disappointment in Principal Morita's voice, the NDA with all its awful implications still lying on his desk, and how many years it had been since he'd last seen his teacher's face. "Can I come meet you in person?" he asked abruptly. "Like, today maybe, for lunch?"

"Today?" Mr. Harrington repeated, obviously startled. "Are you sure that's a good idea, Peter? Not that I wouldn't love to see you, of course, but I really am fine. You don't have to go out of your way to check on me, I promise. You have way too much going on right now."

"I haven't been out of the Tower in days," said Peter. "Going out for one meal isn't going to kill me. Are you free?"

"Yeah, I am," said Mr. Harrington, still sounding hesitant, "but Peter-"

"Hang on a second." He hurried back to the kitchen. "Tony, I want to meet Mr. Harrington for lunch today. I know you said to lay low, but you can find a discreet restaurant for us on short notice, right?"

"Of course, kid. Who do you think you're talking to?" Tony answered. "Tell him we'll see him at noon. I'll text him the details and send a car over to pick him up."

Peter straightened at that, surprised that Tony wanted to come with him. He couldn't help a flash of dismay; he had really wanted to speak to Mr. Harrington alone. Reading the expression on his face, his mentor smiled wryly. "Wow, way to make a guy feel welcome, Underoos," he said without heat. "Don't worry, I'm not going to gatecrash your party for too long. I just have a couple of things to discuss with him, and then I have a meeting scheduled with a couple of congressmen at one."

Feeling bad he'd made Tony feel unwelcome, he pressed the phone to his ear. "Is noon okay?" he asked.

"Uh, sure," said Mr. Harrington, still sounding caught off guard. "If you can actually make time, then I'm wide open." Then his tone brightened and he added, "I can't wait to see you, Peter. It really has been too long."

"Yeah, same," Peter returned with equal warmth. "See you soon." They hung up, and Peter looked at Tony contritely. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...it's not that I don't want you there, I promise."

"I get it, kid," said Tony, waving it off. "You haven't seen your favorite teacher in years and you want to spend some quality time with him." He paused. "Did he sound okay? He hasn't been answering my calls."

"He kept saying he was _fine_ , but it's hard to tell on the phone," said Peter. "I didn't realize you'd been calling him too."

Steve snorted. "He didn't just call _him_ , he called the principal of the school. He's been...more than a little worried."

"Yeah well, you would have been too, if you'd seen how upset the guy was," Tony said defensively, the way he always got when he was revealed to care more than he'd wanted to let on.

Peter's heart warmed at his obvious concern. There had been an unspoken tension between them since he'd confronted Tony about the NDA, but whatever else had happened in the past, it was clear that Tony genuinely cared about Mr. Harrington's well-being now. "I contacted Principal Morita too," he offered. "Twice, actually. He didn't respond to my emails."

"Yeah, he didn't say much to me either. I got the impression that Harrington was avoiding him. I'm glad he finally decided to call you back."

"Yeah, me too." Peter paused, studying his mentor for a moment before he added, "And, uh, I should have said this before, but... thank you. For all this, I mean." He gestured towards the laptop and the painstakingly made notes on his mentor's screen, pages and pages going back to five years ago. "You spent all this time planning this, and when it finally happened, you just jumped in and took the weight off my shoulders. You've been doing that for me for years. I want you to know I do see and appreciate it, Tony. More than you know."

Tony shrugged. "Yeah well, what're you going to do?" he said offhandedly, in the deliberately casual tone he used sometimes when he was about to say something momentous and emotional but was daring anyone to draw attention to it. "Kids are messy. Cleaning up after them comes with the territory."

Peter's breath caught at the startling admission. He wanted to throw his arms around Tony and hug him for saying that out loud, but he was also conscious of Steve sitting at the table, watching them both with a half-smile on his face. So instead he said lightly, "I guess I should just be glad I don't have a Baby Monitor Protocol installed in my suit anymore, huh?"

"That you _know_ of," Tony returned, smirking. "Karen was mine long before she was ever yours, kid. She has a few more tricks up her sleeve than she's let on to you."

"Yeah, right," Peter laughed. Then he paused, suddenly suspicious. "Wait, really?"

Steve laughed out loud, throwing his head back as he regarded them both with fond, mirthful eyes.

...

A few hours later, as he sat beside Tony on the way to Soho, Peter couldn't help but fiddle nervously with the sleeves of his dress shirt. He felt overdressed and on edge, not knowing what to expect from this coming meeting.

He looked down at the leather folder with the NDA, which sat resting on his knees. He wasn't sure why he'd impulsively decided to bring it along. Mr. Harrington had signed it years ago and Peter's identity was out in the open anyway, so it wasn't like it would make any difference now. Perhaps it was because some part of him desperately wanted to know how his former teacher really felt about it now, when all was said and done. His hand drifted down to touch the expensive leather gently, and he noticed Tony flicking his gaze towards it for a fraction of a second, his expression unreadable. His mentor had been unusually quiet since they left the Tower, staring out of the tinted car windows with a pensive air. Peter wondered what he was thinking.

When they finally arrived at the restaurant, Peter paused at the door and took a deep, bracing breath before he stepped through the sliding doors. He immediately spotted Mr. Harrington sitting at a corner booth, his back and shoulders rigid with tension. Peter quickly scanned his face. He looked stressed, dark smudges ringing his eyes, his forehead furrowed as if he was thinking about something unpleasant. Then, he caught sight of Peter, and a stunned surprise washed over his face, his mouth falling open. Peter resisted the urge to look down at himself- had he spilled something on his clothes?

He hurried forward and lifted a hand in greeting, smiling. "Hey, Mr. Harrington."

Mr. Harrington broke into a genuine smile, his eyes crinkling with warmth. "Hey, Peter," he said. Then, he turned to greet Tony as well, his expression respectful and friendly.

Now that he was actually here, Peter found he had no idea what to say. He felt awkward and uncertain as he studied Mr. Harrington's features, cataloguing the changes. He was definitely older and more tired than Peter remembered. Guilt surged up again over the fact that he hadn't been to see him in so long, making any words he wanted to say catch in his throat.

Thankfully, Tony took the lead; first reminding Mr. Harrington that he had a job offer at SI- and it was a huge weight off Peter's shoulders to hear that the principal hadn't actually fired him- then apologizing to him for the NDA. Peter hadn't expected that, but apparently Tony had felt more regret than he'd let on. He didn't miss the profound relief on his mentor's face when Mr. Harrington insisted that he hadn't been exploited.

Finally, Tony stood to leave, and then it was just the two of them sitting across from each other. There was a moment of quiet tension, and then Peter suddenly heard himself speaking in a desperate, babbling rush, apologizing for not seeing Mr. Harrington sooner, pushing the NDA across the table for him to look at, feeling as if he was awaiting some kind of judgment or sentence.

Peter didn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't the careful reverence with which Mr. Harrington leafed through the thick sheaf of papers. He had no idea how to react when the teacher firmly insisted that he really _had_ understood what he'd signed on for, and worse, that he'd _asked_ Tony to leave in the clause about protecting Peter under duress. Peter had thought it would make him feel better to know he hadn't been manipulated into signing it, but he only felt more guilty to learn the true extent of what Mr. Harrington had been willing to sacrifice for him. He found himself actually giving voice to the fears that had haunted him day and night since the shooting. "I wasn't worth that. I wasn't worth your _life_ , or your job."

Mr. Harrington stared at him in surprise, and then he smiled, handing the NDA back as if it were a gift. "You were one of my kids," he said in a voice that left no room for doubt. "You still are. Of _course_ you were worth it, Peter."

Peter felt his lungs deflate as the breath whooshed out of him, the tightness in his chest easing at the assurance. It was exactly what he'd needed to hear. Mr. Harrington had always had a knack for saying the right thing, and apparently three-and-a-half years of distance had not changed that in the slightest. He studied his former teacher, noting again the exhaustion on his face and the way his skin was a little paler than Peter remembered. Now that he was looking for it, he saw the man's eyes were slightly bloodshot, either from lack of sleep or from repeated crying jags. Concerned, he asked, "How are you, really? With the shooting, and... you know. All of this."

"Better than I was," Mr. Harrington replied.

Peter wasn't completely convinced. When he pressed him, he was saddened at the way Mr. Harrington crumbled at his mention of the shooter. His anguish over his student was palpable, and Peter felt a swooping sympathy for him, remembering how he had himself asked the same questions about Adrian Toomes and Quentin Beck. He had learned through bitter experience that sometimes people just weren't what they seemed. When he said as much, Mr. Harrington seemed a little comforted.

As the meal progressed, the conversation moved on to other things. Mr. Harrington asked several questions about his classes, his professors, and his friends at college. He wasn't just making polite conversation, either, but clearly remembered the names and the stories Peter had told him over the phone. "Have you spoken to any of them since this happened?" he asked. "How did they react to all this?"

"I texted a few of them," said Peter, "but honestly, I feel like a lot of them don't really know what to say. They keep trying their best to be normal and prove that nothing has changed, but the fact that they have to try that hard kind of makes it more obvious how much it has."

Mr. Harrington looked dismayed. "I'm really sorry to hear that."

Peter shrugged. "It's disappointing, but it's also kind of...not that big a deal?" he said. "It's not like it doesn't bother me, of course, but those guys were never as close to me as Ned or MJ. I mean, I loved hanging out with them, but the fact is, there wasn't a whole lot I could actually _tell_ them about my life. I'm just really glad everyone I was close to already knew."

Mr. Harrington nodded. "I can imagine what a comfort that must be." There was a pained note in his voice which made Peter glance at him sharply.

"Did you talk to Principal Morita?" he asked, and knew he'd guessed correctly when something flickered across the other man's face, gone too quickly for Peter to read it. "Was he, uh, really mad? About..." He gestured down towards himself, feeling a sinking sensation in his stomach.

"He was-" Mr. Harrington stopped, tried again. "It was a lot to keep from him, so he's not exactly happy with me. I think it'll be a while before he fully trusts me again, and that hurts. I know he still thinks I should have made a different choice where you were concerned. But we've also been through a lot together, and he almost just lost me a few days ago. I don't think this has broken anything that can't be fixed."

Peter was relieved, but also saddened to hear that Spider-Man had caused any kind of strain or damage to Mr. Harrington's relationship with his friend. With a flash of insight, Peter understood how lonely the last seven years of keeping this secret must have been for him. "It must be a relief to have this out in the open," he said quietly.

"Yeah, it is." Mr. Harrington smiled a bit and added, "My therapist is going to have a field day with this when I see her tomorrow."

He'd said it as a joke, but his words sent another pang through Peter's heart, even though he worked to keep his face clear of an outward reaction. The realization that Mr. Harrington hadn't even said a word to his shrink made him want to beg his forgiveness all over again. Principal Morita hadn't been lying when he'd called him strong.

"It's good you're going to therapy," he said. "Actually, now that you mention it, I should probably book an appointment soon too."

"You still seeing the same one you had in high school?" Mr. Harrington asked. "The retired psychologist from SHIELD?"

"Yeah, once a week. She's great."

"Good." He looked at Peter with fierce approval. "I'm really glad you're still taking care of yourself."

Peter smiled and held his eyes. "Just like you taught me," he said.

…

He called Mr. Harrington twice in the week that followed their meeting, just to check in. The way he'd cried at the mention of his student had made it clear how much the shooting had affected him, and Peter was determined to be there for him. Mr. Harrington seemed to welcome his calls despite being hard at work getting ready for school to reopen. While they spoke, Peter's enhanced hearing picked up the sound of a pair of scissors carefully cutting paper for a bulletin board, as well as the distant creak of furniture being moved.

"Do you like your new classroom?" he asked.

"Not yet," said Mr. Harrington with grim decisiveness, "but I will by the end of this week."

Meanwhile, Tony's negotiations with New York's lawmakers and law enforcement personnel progressed rapidly. It had only been a few days, but Peter was already itching to get back into his suit and patrol the city. He was profoundly relieved when the deal finally came through, eleven days after he'd been unmasked. He went down to the governor's office and signed the agreement, and the historic moment was recorded live on C-Span and then released on Twitter. They announced the press conference for later the same day.

The remaining active Avengers had all returned to the city by then. With the exception of Rhodey, who was apparently in the middle of a sensitive military mission in the Middle East, everyone else was there, even Thor, who had flown down from London. Peter couldn't remember the last time they had all gathered under the same roof like this. Probably not since Mysterio had kidnapped him. He could tell that Steve and Tony were both happy to have the team back together again. He was, too.

Unexpectedly, Pepper Potts had also returned from a business trip in Singapore, to help do "damage control," as she put it in a dry, unimpressed tone. She sat them down to prepare for the press conference, going over the dos and don'ts of what they should say with an easy confidence that came from decades of experience managing Tony's messes.

Peter didn't know her as well as the others, but he liked her a lot. She and Tony had a pretty unusual relationship. They'd had a long, four-year engagement, making the public speculate endlessly, followed by a quickie wedding at Stark Tower which had given rise to weeks of false rumors that she was pregnant. For the past several years, she and Tony had shared a residence at the Tower, but most of the time, she was in and out of the country, traveling for weeks and sometimes months at a stretch on business trips. It seemed to work for the two of them, though, and Tony seemed pretty happy.

As they all sat together in the waiting room before the conference, Peter tried to swallow down his nervousness. Peper watched over them carefully, her expression intent and assessing. "Okay, final reminders," she said. "Between Peter, Tony, and Scott, I know _someone_ is going to say something unplanned or ill-advised. _That's_ pretty much a foregone conclusion, but Tony, would you do me a favor and at least _try_ to stick to the cards this time? And Scott, you should just...not speak at all."

"Hey, what did I ever do?" Scott asked in an injured tone, even as his teammates chuckled and smirked at him.

"What cards?" Tony asked at the same time, his eyes dancing with laughter. Pepper sighed at him in exasperation, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You didn't give _me_ any cards," Peter said, his nervousness increasingly exponentially as he realized this.

"You're terrible at pretense," Pepper told him matter-of-factly. "They'll love you the most if you're spontaneous. Just do me a favor and don't tell the press where you were when you got bitten by that spider, okay? The last thing we need is a lawsuit from Norman Osborn."

"Duly noted," said Peter.

Steve glanced down at his watch and cleared his throat. "One minute left," he said. "We don't want to be late."

Peter stood on slightly shaky legs. Tony stepped up beside him and clasped his shoulder bracingly. "You ready, kid?"

For a second Peter wished he really was a kid again, that he could just turn away from this door and run from the chaos and fanfare of being publicly revealed, like he had when he was fifteen. He drew in a deep breath, glancing around at the array of people who'd gone out of their way to support him. He thought about May watching this press briefing with Dr. Cho as they stood in her new office, and imagined that Mr. Harrington was standing at his other side, telling him in his kind, steady voice, " _You've got this, Peter."_

He straightened his shoulders and faced the door squarely. "Yeah," he said. "Let's do this."

…

Afterwards, Peter walked out of the elevator on Tony's floor of the Tower and sat down hard on the living room sofa, feeling like he'd just run a marathon. He couldn't believe he had just poured out so much of himself for the world to see: the way losing Ben to a gun had shaped his life, how he'd grown up with the terror of school shootings and ALICE training drills, how he'd even attended the protest at Parkland in his sophomore year. He was glad he'd said it, but he hadn't planned to reveal any of that.

All that stuff about Mr. Harrington, too, about everything he'd done and how brave he'd been- that had been completely spontaneous too, just as Pepper had told him to be. Calling him a _superhero_ had been a furious, blazing challenge to anyone who had dared to question his teacher, and it had felt good to defend him like that. Still, he wished he'd warned Mr. Harrington before making a gesture that big and public. He wondered how the man was going to react when he heard it.

Tony took a seat beside him, looking pleased. "It gets easier with practice," he said. "You did really well."

"Thanks." Peter turned his head and studied his mentor. "I didn't know you planned to say all that. About funding a gun buyback program and going after the NRA? That was pretty amazing."

"Yeah, well, at least this way, Pep can pretend to the company's board that she's just as shocked and horrified as they are that I went _off-script_ again and brought politics into it," Tony said, shrugging. "It pays to have a reputation for being unpredictable. And besides, with how everyone has reacted to this, completely focused on all the wrong things? It needed to be said."

"Yeah, it did."

In the pocket of Peter's jeans, his phone began to buzz. He fished it out, his breath catching when he saw Mr. Harrington's name on his lockscreen. It was 12:40 pm- shouldn't he be in the middle of class right now? Peter swiped his thumb across the screen, worried that this was about something he'd said. "Hello?"

"Peter." From the sound of his rough, shaky voice, Peter could tell immediately that Mr. Harrington was crying. His heart sank to the bottom of his shoes.

"Shit, Mr. Harrington, are you...?"

"Yeah, no, I'm fine. I'm sorry; I know I should have waited until I was a little more together before I called you. Jim is with my kids right now and I have to go back in there in about five seconds, but I just..." He released a trembling breath, fighting for control. "What you said, you and Mr. Stark both; you have no idea how much that means to me. That you would go up there and say all _that_ in front of the entire world. You..." His voice cracked.

"I meant every word," Peter told him softly.

"I hope you know I consider signing that NDA to be one of the most rewarding decisions I've ever made," Mr. Harrington said. "After you graduated, I used to look up into the sky and see you sometimes, flying through New York on the way to save someone. And then later you'd call me to talk about some brilliant chemistry solution you'd just dreamed up, and every time you did, it felt like such a gift to hear how well you were doing. It still does."

The words crashed over Peter with a deep, overwhelming sense of relief. He finally found himself truly believing that the price Mr. Harrington had paid to protect him really _had_ been worth it to him after all, not just because Peter was one of his kids, but also because he was Peter, and that meant something too. He closed his eyes, almost moved to tears himself. "I'm really glad you feel that way. And also…"

"Yeah?"

"I don't want three more years to go by before I see you again. I know it might put you in danger, but I just told the entire world how close we are, so if any supervillains are going to target you, the cat's probably out of the bag, right?" He stopped, suddenly alarmed. " _Oh my god,_ how did I not even think about that until now, I should never have- Tony, you _have_ to work on upgrading the security for Mr. Harrington's apartment, because otherwise-"

"Take a breath, kid," Tony cut in, laughing at him gently. "I'm already on it. I put in an offer on his apartment building three days ago."

Peter felt some of his panic recede, even as Mr. Harrington asked in shock, "Wait, am I hearing things, or did Tony Stark just say he's my _landlord_ now?!"

"He did," said Peter, mouthing a quiet _thank you_ to his mentor, who nodded and smiled back. "He can be pretty sneaky when he wants to protect people. You'll get used to it."

"Wow, that's..." Mr. Harrington paused, then seemed to shake off his surprise. "Tell him I'm really grateful."

"I will."

"And to answer your question," Mr. Harrington continued, his voice coming out strong and steady now, no hint of tears or shakiness at all, "of course I'd love to see you again. How about this Saturday?"

...

END.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s a wrap. Both these fics have felt very special and personal to me, and I’m really going to miss this world. I am marking the series as complete for now, but maybe there will be more oneshots in the works some day, so feel free to stay subscribed.
> 
> Oh also, the idea for Tony buying Mr. Harrington’s building to protect him from supervillains came from the wonderful fic ‘O the strengths of webs we weave’ by iarranme, which covers the reaction of several minor characters to Peter's identity reveal in FFH. https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/48268081?show_comments=true&view_full_work=false#comment_307567903
> 
> I also do have an idea for a future project; a new Irondad fanfic which I plan to start working on sooner rather than later, though I do need to rewatch a few of the movies first. It’s a canon divergence AU from Infinity War and Endgame. This is the (very tentative) summary- I tend to write out my summaries right at the outset so I have a grasp on what I’m trying to do:
> 
> “In a cruel twist of fate, Tony was the one snapped and Peter was the one who lived. Five years after dissolving into ash on Titan, Tony wakes to a completely transformed world. The dorky teenager he once knew is now a haunted adult, forced to grow up overnight after losing everyone and then inheriting Stark Industries at sixteen. Peter has spent years inventing time travel so he can bring everyone back. Now that he’s finally succeeded, he’s quietly falling apart at the seams. Tony knows it’s down to him to help the kid...but with half a decade’s worth of distance between them, he doesn’t even know where to start.”
> 
> I don’t know if this has ever been done before (it probably has?) but I’m already pretty excited about it. I love writing heavy angst stories with eventual hurt/comfort and healing...which you may have probably guessed by now, lol. I want to write at least a couple of chapters by mid-June since I have a new job at a new school starting at the end of next month and my productivity will be completely shot then.
> 
> I probably won’t wait to finish writing the whole fic before I start posting this time, which will mean you’ll see this a lot sooner...but it will probably mean longer gaps between updates than I was able to do for the Everyday stories. Anyway, I’m so stoked about writing more Irondad/Spiderson fic. I have not felt this fired up or invested in a single fandom since my teenage years when I was obsessed with LOTR and Charmed. 
> 
> Also, despite the detailed summary which makes it sound like I know what I’m doing, this story is in the very early stages of ideation (as in I literally thought of it three days ago). So if you have any ideas or thoughts or even prompts for things you’d like to see, please mention them in the comments. Maybe something you say will inspire me!
> 
> Finally, before I sign off, I wanted to thank everyone who has read and commented on this series. I have never been more grateful for A03 than during this pandemic. Sharing this story and interacting with people in comments has been a gift every day. I hope a few of you will stick around for the next fic. 
> 
> Goodbye for now, and stay safe out there.


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